What do people think is the significance of the final scene where Noodles's face breaks into a smile? Might it be that Leone is revealing that Noodles is pleased with the outcome of the bankraid as now he gets the million dollars and can escape the life of crime? Hence his lack of guilt towards Max. What do people think?

I saw a documentary once about Leone and there was a story of a guy after the première of OUTIA who comes to Leone and asks him about the famous smile at the end of the movie. Leone answerd him that the movie begins in an opium tent, and that it ends in an opium tent, so maybe everything between is just an opium dream...

That the WHOLE of the 60's (old Noodles) segment is an opium fuelled fantasy - that Noodles racked with guilt at having inadvertanely killed his friends dreamt!

...or that the 60's segment were really some huge ploy concocted by Max to pull the wool over Noodles eyes for 30 years!

I tend to go with the opium dream one.

It has it's holes; one has to assume that Noodles could see into the future and predict the invention of the TV for one!

However it does hold water - even more so if you read the book it's based on (The Hoods).

Now not much plot is lifed from the book, just characters and settings, and the movie is infinately superior but it's interesting to note that the book doesn't contain any 60's segments. And it also has lots of graphic depections of Noodles having opium fuelled dreams (of him, Max et al as Knights in Camelot and other wacked out stuff etc.)Now the only reason I can see Leone omitting any reference to the opium dreams was because the whole 60's segment IS ONE!

It was just done to be seen BOTH ways. Done so well that the majority of viewers don't even notice...

Infact I'd seen this film about 4 times over the course of 8 years when I read about the opium fantasy POV on a teletext review late at night! I was so shocked I couldn't get to sleep for hours!

...the dream also explains the ageless Deborah and doppleganger Max not to mention that classic final shot !